Who Is an Expert?

By Sergio Almeida, P. Eng. | Diverso Energy

Scott Blake, Unsplash, https://unsplash.com/photos/x-ghf9LjrVg

As the geothermal industry continues to grow, so has the number of service providers. Many claim to be experienced, but what is relevant experience? How would someone know the difference?

As with any industry, experience is not a checkbox; tradespeople are not granted certification for having done one project, nor for having completed a training course. They are certainly not certified for being onsite while someone else was doing work. The Red Seal certification, for example, is granted after years of specific, hands-on experience that begins with coursework, evolves through apprenticeship, and is followed by years of experience that indicates the requisite expertise.

Unfortunately, such a certification does not exist in the geothermal industry - neither for drilling nor the lateral connections (i.e., fusion work), and certainly not for design work. The principles and significance of certification do, however, apply.

Certification courses provide a good foundation, with organizations such as the International Ground Source Heat Pump Association (IGSHPA) offering fundamental theoretical knowledge to designers and installers. These courses only do so much however, as you cannot truly be an expert without many years of experience through a multitude of projects. Ideally, that knowledge should be expanded further to understand operations and see how buildings operate in real life, how the installed geothermal systems respond, and how the work could have been better applied in a similar situation. This process of continuous improvement leads to real expertise. Many will try and minimize this or argue this isn’t critical but the unfortunate reality is that it is. Unless you have managed a borefield long term (5+ years), you don’t have the experience to guarantee success.

Training, apprenticeship, and application experience; three pillars of knowledge and expertise that can only be obtained through many years of commitment.  These are principles that have been used as a common standard for many industries over time and should now be applied similarly to the growing geothermal industry. When choosing your service provider for any part of your project, these are the aspects to look out for.